Standards
In the 1970s, Hopper advocated for the Defense Department to replace large, centralized systems with networks of small, distributed computers. Any user on any computer node could access common databases located on the network. She pioneered the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components, most significantly for early programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The Navy tests for conformance to these standards led to significant convergence among the programming language dialects of the major computer vendors. In the 1980s, these tests (and their official administration) were assumed by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), known today as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
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Famous quotes containing the word standards:
“Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“If one doesn’t know one’s own country, one doesn’t have standards for foreign countries.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
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—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)